


steel and snow

by manbunjon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Sansa is rescued from King's Landing, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 04:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19985881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manbunjon/pseuds/manbunjon
Summary: Sansa could see their faces now, appearing between the jagged edges of broken wood in the door. Their helms, even blood spattered and un-illuminated, were familiar, and, despite everything, she felt her lips twitch.It had been years since she had seen Northern forged plate, not since the day her fathers men had been disposed of from their posts around the keep, and the familiar dark grey mail made her stomach tighten with excitement. Even now, even with a war raging around her and a door being broken down before her, she felt more at peace than she had for longer than she cared to think about.The remains of the door were pushed aside as men filed into the room, looking somewhat surprised to see her. Sansa lifted her chin and pulled back her shoulders, standing tall and proud before them, even in her underclothes, even with bruises still fading upon her back.She was the daughter of Lady Catelyn and Lord Stark, the blood of Winterfell. She would be brave.





	steel and snow

The air was sticky and warm with the moisture of freshly fallen rain and sweat beaded to the skin at the back of her neck and beneath the arms of her heavy gown. It had been years since she had been allowed to commission any new gowns, and those she had brought from Winterfell were now too small or too warm, or an uncomfortable mix of both. 

But in the privacy of her solar, Sansa Stark preferred those that were too small to the heavy woolen gowns she had once worn in the style of her mother.

Even now, with her ankles and wrists bared and the stays of her gown too small to be laced properly, the heat of the Southron city had birthed perspiration that clung to her skin from the moment her window had been closed and locked earlier that morning.

She sat beside the window, looking out over the city she had so long ago come to hate. It was nothing at all like the songs of Aegon had described. There was no beauty in the faded cobblestones, no mystery in the aged buildings, or adventures to be had down the end of every unpaved road. But Sansa did not mind, not truly, for she no longer knew any songs.

The yellowing stained glass of the former Tower of the Hand, where King Joffrey had long ago moved her apartments. He had found it quite amusing to visit her each afternoon for nearly a fortnight, insisting he escort her around the perimeter so that he could show her each and every place that had been visited by her lord father before Ser Illyn had taken his head.

Sansa had pretended to look shocked, to entertain the king with her tears, when in truth she had preferred her new chambers to the old. It afforded her much greater privacy and during the nights she imagined her father was sitting in the solar beside her bedchambers, and she would speak to him sometimes, wishing the Gods would allow him some way to respond to her. 

She was still sitting beside the window when she had first noticed the shift in the city. The way even the wind had seemed to grow suddenly quiet, as though, like the people of King's Landing, it had come to recognise the threat of some unseen force.

The afternoon air, usually rife with the sounds of barter and trade, hammered steel and sizzling fires, jingling purses and exchanged coins, laughter, shouting, the lazily muffled moans from the pleasure houses of Flea Bottom, had all lapsed quite suddenly into an eery silence as a great hush had stretched over the city.

All at once the city had erupted with noise as the sounds of alarm filed through it.

Even from so high above the sound traveled to her, the shift of grating metal as swords were drawn, the shuttering of businesses and houses, the heavy footfalls of boots as knights and warriors took their places around the city.

Sansa had stood abruptly, jumping as her chair clattered to the tile behind her. She had not been told of an impending attacks from an enemy host— though in truth she supposed it could be another of Joffrey's tricks. Suddenly it made sense why no maids had called upon her that morning, why her untouched supper tray sat spoiling upon the sill.

She had not been brought to Maegor's Holdfast with the other ladies nor to the throne room with the King to wish him luck before the battle. Instead she had been left behind, locked away in the Hand's Tower like some maiden from a song she had long ago forgotten— though she knew the men that would come for her would do little rescuing.

Sansa was unsure how long had passed before the first soldiers came pounding into the city, appearing from the trees and the Kingsroad as though that had been summoned by magic. She squinted down at their banners, trying in vain to recognise anything other than the small ant-like shapes of the men on horseback that raced through the city.

She sprinted to the window at the other side of the chamber, small as a port on the side of a ship and no wider than the palm of her hand. But she could see the harbour teeming with activity, as what seemed to be a thousand ships had appeared within the bay.

A fist of fear twisted in the pit of her stomach as she recognised the sigil that decorated their massive sails, the golden krakken of House Greyjoy staring fiercely back at her. Sansa felt tears prick at her eyes, knowing then that if the Greyjoys found success in their second rebellion, she would only be trading one captor for another.

Sansa swallowed hard, worrying at her bottom lip as she looked out over the peaceful city one final time before the silence was dissolved and the calm, lazy air of a city at peace became rife with the sounds of war.

She could only watch as the massive army attacked from seemly every side, sacking the city as Tywin Lannister had once done, at the very start of all of this.

Sansa watched the knights surround the city and knew at once that the Ironborn must have supplemented their forces, for surely no house of repute would side with the Greyjoys in another rebellion.

She frowned, wondering if perhaps they had hired an army of Essossi or Westerosi sellswords. But even then...

Sansa, with her sewing circles and high harp lessons, had not been privy to the same lessons of history and warfare as her brothers, but even she knew that no meagre force of sellswords and turncloaks would be able to match the Lannister forces.

From the burning ships in the harbour to the blazing gates around the perimeter of the city, massive plumes of grey and black smoke had began to rise into the air. Even through the closed windows she could smell the fire and see the ash that swept through the air like snow, blanketing the city in a cloak of leaden white.

Within an hour the destruction was absolute, and, despite the bleakness of her prospects, Sansa began to feel excitement stir in her belly.

Stone and brick fell through the streets like a sea of jagged rubble and the flames were wild and untamed, eating away at the city until the horizon burned like a field of fire. From so high in her tower the mounted men seemed small and numerous as ants, but no matter how hard she squinted, her eyes could not make out the shapes on their banners from so far away.

The girl in the high tower watched as the army drew nearer, her nervousness reflected in the way her fingers clawed at the freckled marble of the window sill until they began to ache.

Sansa remembered another battle that had torn through the capital, and wondered how the king fared. The bulk of Stannis Baratheon's forces had caused Joffrey to flee in terror, abandoning his men to the rescue of his grandfather and seeking refuge in his mother's arms as though he were a babe. Sansa hoped that one of his small council had been able to convince the King to join his men on the vanguard, and that some fell arrow would strike Joffrey between his eyes.

And this time Tywin Lannister would not come to their rescue— for Lord Tyrion's arrow had caught the Lannister liege five moons past— and the rumours held that the Stranger had taken the Lord of Lannister with his breeches at his ankles and a golden arrow at his belly.

Sansa could feel her heart begin to pound in time with the Greyjoy wardrums that echoed through the city like a beating heart. The bannermen were closer now, near enough to recognise the pale fabric of the banners that bore the sigil she had thought lost.

She stumbled back into the chair she had pulled beside the window two nights previous, clamping her eyes shut as tightly as she was able and counting slowly to three. Sansa opened her eyes and looked warily toward the horizon, as though expecting the familiar grey and white banners to have disappeared.

But still they stood before her, rippling in the wind and drawing closer to the Red Keep until there was no mistaking the direwolf that had been so deftly stitched upon them.

She let her eyes fall closed again, this time out of relief instead of fear, and the sudden laugh that filled the barren chamber was almost unrecognizable as her own. The knowledge that her house— her family, her _brothers—_ had finally come for her was nearly too much to bear, and the anticipation that clawed through her left her trembling.

Sansa had oft thought of him, brave and gentle and strong, standing in the throne room of the Red Keep with a sword in his hand and Joffrey at his feet, the grey direwolf of the Starks emblazoned upon his chest. In her dreams she had imagined how the Lannister's would grovel for Robb's forgiveness, begging for the mercy they had never once given, their golden faces would contort in fear and, eventually, realisation— just as her father's had the moments before Ser Illyn's sword had fallen.

But each morning she awoke in an empty bed, an empty chamber, an empty tower, and each morning she was reminded of the golden prison that caged her, where he would never come for her.

Sansa was thrown to her knees as an explosion shook the city. The walls of the Red Keep trembled with its force, the aged stone groaning as though at any moment the castle might give way beneath her feet.

It took a moment for the sound to reach her so high in the tower— though the delay did little to lessen the sound. The screams slipped through the fingers she clasped over her ears like wisps of smoke, so deafeningly loud that they seemed to be coming from just beside her instead of hundreds of metres away.

A flash of brilliant green light filled the air, so powerfully bright that for a moment she could see nothing else, and even after the light had began to fade Sansa could see nothing but the bright spots that shifted before her tired eyes. The explosion had shattered the stained glass of the windowpanes and as Sansa ambled back toward the window, she used the toes of her boots to push aside the broken glass.

The flames were fanned by the salty wetness of the Southern ocean air, spreading over the far side of the city like grasping fingers as the wildfire worked to swallow the city, just as they had during the Battle of the Blackwater. Sansa could feel a fist of nervousness tighten in her stomach. She spoke to the Seven and the Old Gods and the Fire God and any of the Gods above or below that might be present to listen to her words, praying that her brothers had not been in the wildfire's path.

Her eyes burned from the piquancy of the stacks of smoke that rose in the air and swirled through the city, matched both in colour and in frequency by the ash that swept though the air like autumn leaves. Sansa closed her eyes, clasping her hands tightly together as they twisted nervously in her skirts.

The bay had been razed by the burnishing green flame and by the time Sansa's vision returned she could see that nothing remained in the harbour but the smoldering wreckage of the Greyjoy fleet. Her heart ached for Theon, hoping that he had not been aboard during the explosion, as she knew her brothers had not been.

Robb always rode for where the fighting was thickest. They said that he and his wolf fought side by side among the men he had rallied and that he would not sheathe his sword until he was sure that his men were safe. And Jon...

Sansa had not seen Jon in more years than her heart could bear to count.

She had last seen him when he was a boy of thirteen winters and she a girl of barely eleven, when her father had interrupted their supper at the high table to announce that he had finally managed to convince his bastard son not to pledge to the Night's Watch.

The hall had erupted in loud, whooping cheers and though Uncle Benjen had looked discontented at his brother's words, he had still smiled and lifted his chalice in support of the toast. Jon had waited a moment before excusing himself politely from the lower table, and had retired to his chambers and bared the door, and when Sansa had finally managed to sneak away from her Septa and coax him into allowing her inside, she had seen the angry tears that welled in his eyes.

She had held him close as he cried, a hand stroking slowly down his back, her free hand curled beneath his as he held it over his heart. He had clutched her so tightly to him, as though the arms she wound around him were the only thing anchoring him to the earth, and for many nights after she had been able to recall the scent of him where she had smelled it upon his pillow.

She had so long dreamt of the day they would be wed, when she would be able to sit beside him at the Lord's table and fall asleep at his side each and every night. But the next day Sansa had taken her father's hand and allowed herself to be helped into the litter, her home for the next fortnight, as they rode for King's Landing, leaving the life she had known far, far behind.

Sansa knew the knights must have used ladders to breach the outer walls of the castle, for there was a sudden influx of knights through the outer areas of the palace, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they broke through the inner walls and made it into the Red Keep. She imagined them flocking in by the hundreds, by the thousands, slaughtering every Kingsguard who had ever left the imprints of fists upon her back, and smiled, knowing Jon would come for her soon enough.

Sansa wasn't sure how long had passed since she had first realised the Stark men had breached the outer perimeter of the city— but before long the silence that had surrounded the Hand’s Tower was shattered, leaving Sansa to be engulfed completely by the deafening sounds of the battle.

She could hear the pounding of boots on stone as men raced through the courtyards below, the grate and shift of Northern forged plate lifting familiarly to her ears. Wood splintered beneath the heavy iron teeth of the battering rams being used to break through the barred doors leading into the palace.

Loudest of all were the screams. She could hear the bellowing of dying men, the gutteral shouts of charging knights and the screams of those being charged upon, even the horses screamed as they surged through the battlefield as the roar of war was brought closer to her than it ever had been before.

Sansa felt a spike of nervous fear pull at her lower belly, cold and firm as a fist, as though she had just gulped down a whole pitcher of icy water. For a moment she could feel only fear, watching as the men drew closer, as the swords clashed and the battering of the ram was punctuated only by screams.

There is a beast in every man, screamed a voice in her head, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. These men would not know her. They might think her just another Lannister servant—or worse— a Lannister herself, though in her faded dressing gown she did not much look the part. They would take her, they would hurt her...

But soon she felt the knot of fear in her belly loosen, if only just slightly, knowing that Jon would kill any man who dared touch her.

Sansa stood before the broken window and felt the smoke filled wind whip at her face as she looked over the smoldering city, seeing it now in a way she never had. Where King's Landing had once seemed so daunting to her, as though it were a massive labyrinth and she the princess from a mummers song that had been locked away at its heart, the Southron city seemed only small now.

Even after all this time she had always known that her brothers would come for her, and despite the fact that Sansa had yet to see either man, she could feel them. In her belly, her heart. In the very furthest recesses of her soul, she could feel them.

They were Starks, after all, a true pack. She knew she would be able to feel if something had happened to her brothers, just as she had felt something deep within her break when her father's head had tumbled from Ser Illyn’s block. 

She started at the sound of shouting from the corridor just beyond her door. Her eyes flicked toward the tray that had not been removed from the previous night's supper, and, not for the first time, Sansa cursed the Lannisters for refusing her a knife.

She could hear fists pounding upon her door, but made no move to answer their calls. Instead Sansa found her feet were rooted to the ground, her fingers pulling nervously through the pleats in her cloak as she drew it tighter around herself.

She thought of her mother, long dead by the hands of the Bolton's, who had always brushed her hair so sweetly. She thought of her father, the way he had always kissed her brow when he was pleased with her. She thought of Jon.

Sansa could remember sitting beside him upon the benches in the Godswood, so close that she had been able to feel the warmth of his skin even through his fur-trimmed mantle. They had curled close together to brace against the harsh winds of winter, and when Jon had reached out to cover her upturned hand with his warm palm, she had relished in the feel of his rough thumb stroking her fingers.

She had commented absently that with her cold hands and his warm ones it was as though they had been made for each other. Jon had tensed, his grey eyes going dark and impossibly deep as they searched her face, leaving her heart to beat uncomfortably fast against the cage of her ribs, like a bird threatening to fly free.

Sansa had seen the fear that danced in his eyes as she had frowned back at him, pulling him close enough to enfold him in her arms, as she had so often done with Bran or Rickon. His head had fallen to rest in the soft concave between her neck and shoulder, his body molding against hers to preserve their closeness.

Jon had pulled away, looking up at her for what seemed to be one terribly long moment, before he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. The hand Sansa had run comfortingly down his back had been able to feel the hard bunch of muscle ripple beneath her palm and she had flushed, the heat that swam through her belly dropping suddenly between her legs.

Even in all of her inexperience Sansa had known it was a proper kiss. She had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him flush against her, and as she had given herself over to him, Sansa had lifted her eyes to the glowing face of the Heart Tree and uttered a silent vow, promising that she she was his, from this day, until the end of her days,

Sansa was pulled back to reality when a stunning crash tore through the chamber, so jarringly loud that for a brief moment the sounds of battle below her window paled in comparison.

She backed away from the door, retreating so far against the wall that she could feel the uneven stone dig into her back like grasping fingers. She watched as the chamber door was forced from its hinges, the wood splintering beneath the brunt force of ramming shoulders or thudding boots, and Sansa knew it would not be long before she was found.

Where time had seemed to quicken as Sansa watched the battle break out across the city, time had now begun to slow as she watched the door.

Splintering wood spilled over the marble threshold, the bar she had drawn down over the door doing little to stave off the intrusion. She could hear shouting from just outside the door as knights moved through the corridors of the tower, no doubt searching for survivors, or any who had taken shelter outside of Maegor's holdfast.

Sansa could see their faces now, appearing between the jagged edges of broken wood in the door. Their helms, even blood spattered and un-illuminated, were familiar, and, despite everything, she felt her lips twitch.

It had been years since she had seen Northern forged plate, not since the day her fathers men had been disposed of from their posts around the keep, and the familiar dark grey mail made her stomach tighten with excitement. Even now, even with a war raging around her and a door being broken down before her, she felt more at peace than she had for longer than she cared to think about.

The remains of the door were pushed aside as men filed into the room, looking somewhat surprised to see her. Sansa lifted her chin and pulled back her shoulders, standing tall and proud before them, even in her underclothes, even with bruises still fading upon her back.

She was the daughter of Lady Catelyn and Lord Stark, the blood of Winterfell. She would be brave.

A knight broke away from the others and moved forward. As her eyes fell to the sword still held high in his hand Sansa thought of Ice, the blade she had so often watched as her father sat with in the Godswood as he dragged a whetstone across the blade, the blade that should have passed to Robb, and his children after him. Last she had heard Lord Tyrion had returned the blade to the North, as a show of goodwill toward the house his family had done their best to destroy. But now...

Her eyes were drawn up from the blade by further movement and she watched as the knight removed his helm, the hands that had balled into tight fists at her sides loosening.

_Jon._

The years had changed him, turned him from the attenuated boy she had left behind at Winterfell to a man grown, as strong and handsome and lethal as the songs promised that Robert Baratheon had been at the Trident. And yet he remained the same. From the moment he had stepped into the chamber Sansa had recognised him, from the shape of his face, no longer rounded with the fat of childhood, to the grey of his eyes, sharp and hooded and holding the same impossible gleam they always did when looking upon her.

"Out." he said. His eyes were unmovable upon hers.

The knights bustling around him paused, confusion etched over their faces, but their voices died away as he spoke."My lord—"

"Out!" Jon barked, and it did not take long for the chamber to empty.

Jon Snow looked ever inch the man the boy she had once known had always longed to be. Beneath his mail and plate he wore the same boiled leather and padded doublet that her lord father once had, though it was clear he favoured greys and blacks compared to the reds and oranges of Lord Stark.

He was quick to set his blade back in its sheathe, the studded leather of his swordbelt knotted at his slim waist in the same Northern fashion it always had been. She could still hear the sounds of battle raging outside the broken window, but she cared little for it anymore.

The air around them was charged with uncertainty, as dry and hot as the rest of the South always seemed to be. Just seeing him again made her ache for the cool breezes and icy coldness of Winterfell, and whether it was an effect of the heat or of him, Sansa could feel sweat dotting at her brow, an unfamiliar heat upon her skin making her gown stick to the small of her back. 

It was as though Jon was looking at a memory. A vivid dream of the girl who had turned to offer one final farewell as he had stood high upon Winterfell's battlements and watched her carriage pull away.

"Sansa." Jon breathed, brow drawn, thinking that if the girl standing before him truly was a hallucination, that it was the most vivid— and the most cruel— of all.

Despite the note of hesitation in his voice, Jon had spoken her name in the same way he always had, with the same Northern ictus she had not heard for so many years.

The hands that had tightened into fists at her sides loosened, her bottom lip quavering slightly as her eyes swept over him, the same familiar shade of blue he often saw in his dreams of Winterfell. She could be anything now, this girl before him that he no longer knew, but she would always be his.

He took a cautious step towards her, as one might approach a skittish pup, and when Sansa reached out for him, relief relaxed his features and left him looking years younger.

Jon's beard had filled in considerably, but the dark hair peppering his cheeks and chin had been shorn in the same familiar Northern style— an obvious difference from those men in the Capitol who insisted upon a close shave. His hair was longer now too and as Sansa moved closer she was unable to resist reaching a hard towards him and running her fingers through the dark curls.

Sansa felt the leather band slip through her fingers as she pulled it from his hair, her fingertips carding through the dark, matted curls. Even after so many years he still felt familiar to her, and their bodies needed no introductions to reacclimate to the touch of the other.

Jon's sword hand had begun to flex rhythmically, his only outward sign of nervousness, and for a moment it was as though he were unsure if he could touch her. The eyes that were trained upon him were bright blue, deep and striking as the sea's churning waves— and just as likely to drown him. The rest of her might have changed, might have grown taller or slimmer, might have hardened, but her eyes were just the same, just as familiar, and just as capable of calming him.

His hand slid down the curve of her back before settling upon her hip and despite the blood and sweat and filth that marred the front of his gilet, Sansa let herself sink against him. Sansa laid her arms around his broadened shoulders and buried her face into the space between his neck and shoulder, the slim stripe of exposed skin the only part of him not enswathed by armour.

She lavished in the feel of his body against hers, all hard plains and firm moors where there had once been only boyish softness, and she was surrounded by his smell, smoke and oiled leather and the heady scent of his bare skin. She exhaled long and low, close enough to feel him shudder at the excitation of her warm breath upon his neck.

Jon moved to cradle her face in his gloved hands, his thumbs sweeping across her cheeks as he lifted her eyes to meet his. His dark eyes were scorching, and though such steadfast eye contact might have made the old Sansa flush, she did not allow herself to look away, instead reveling in the heady look of desire that bevelled through his Stark grey eyes.

"Gods, Sansa..." he breathed.

His voice was hoarse and deep, frayed at the edges by the same yearning that threatened to overtake her, and she could hear the dark undercurrent that clouded his voice.

Sansa closed the space between them without further hesitation. She was no longer the girl who wasted her time wondering if such embraces were wrong, for after so many things she had once thought she wanted had turned out only wrong, such clinging embraces and perfervid touches could only be right.

There was no hesitation to the way Jon’s mouth consigned to hers at once, responding to her touch with such urgency and want that it was as though Jon had been kissing her since Winterfell and she had been a fool to keep him waiting.

From the moment Jon had first walked into the chamber Sansa had been able to tell that his blood was up, the man before her rendered half wild by by both the urgency of battle and the urgency to touch her.

There was something different in him— perhaps in her too.

They were no longer the same children who had once snuck chaste, closed-mouthed kisses as they hid upon the ramparts or felt giddy for hours at the mere prospect of his lips upon her knuckles as he greeted her.

Now Jon's touch was raw, animalistic, the way his grey eyes swept darkly over her leaving no confusion as to why the sigil of a white wolf was emblazoned so proudly upon his breast. Sansa's lips parted, allowing his mouth to slant against hers and deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding across her lower lip, and it was not long before they set about claiming each other with teeth and tongues and warm, ragged breath.

Jon learned forward, falling forward into the cradle of her hips so that she was able to feel firsthand the effect her hungry kisses had wreaked upon his body. Jon turned his head and let his mouth slant across hers to deepen their kiss, finding it was not nearly enough to slake the thirst that had built within him after so long starved of her touch.

He pulled his lips from hers and turned their attention elsewhere, peppering kisses along her jaw, the column of her neck, down to the ribbon of skin near her collarbones not fully covered by her shift. Jon's lips closed around the skin beneath her ear with a soft pucker, leaving a jolt of pleasure to ripple through her at the contact. His tongue pressed to the hollow of her throat as though intending to memorise it, his teeth grazing her neck so that she uttered a pityingly soft moan.

Jon pulled away with a start, looking dazed, as though just now realising what had become of him. "We mustn't." he breathed, breath ragged and chest heaving.

Sansa did not miss a beat, catching his stilled hands in hers and bringing them to her lips, as though breathing life back into him with every warm kiss. "We must."

Her hands slid beneath his tunic, thin fingers dancing over the ridges of his stomach, the warm expanse of his chest, the broadness of his shoulders, and for a moment Sansa cursed him for being so firmly buried beneath the layers of cloth and boiled leather that had so long faded from her familiarity.

She could feel the blood leeching into her shift from where it had spattered upon his breastplate and it was strange to kiss his skin and feel the blood of strangers beneath her lips. In her mind it was the lifeblood of those who had so long hurt her; Ser Meryn, who had taken pleasure in her cries of pain, Ser Boros, whose mailed fists had so often rained down upon her. She imagined it was Jon who had done the beatings now, who had relished in the sound of their screams as the King had with hers.

Jon's sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck, nipping, teasing, kissing. Sansa captured his earlobe between her teeth, then sucked gently on it to sooth the ache left behind. His arms held her steadily, the firmness of his grip leaving her breathless— thought she supposed it could have been a result of each of his feverous kisses.

Her fingers sank once more into his dark hair, tugging gently at his curls until the swell of his throat was exposed. She pressed her lips where his pulse thrummed restlessly against his throat, scraping her teeth across his skin until she could feel him shudder beneath her. His cock was firm as hammered steel against her belly, the hands that roamed her body making quick work of unraveling what little hesitance still remained.

Jon pulled away for a moment, his eyes searching her face for a sign of discontent but finding nothing but longing. Her lips moved to seek his the moment they first broke apart, and his hands, finally divested of his thick gloves, moved from their place at her hips to work at the laces of his breeches.

He allowed himself a moment of respite to look upon her face. Her cheeks were flushed and hot, Tully blue eyes bright with pleasure, her bottom lip plump and gleaming from the interception of so many hungry kisses. Sansa lifted her eyes to meet his, leaving Jon able to see the sweet vulnerability of the girl he had once known shining through the steel of the woman she had become, and for a moment both were silent, needing not speak the words that were already said in every touch.

The oiled silk of her outer robe slid down her arms and revealed her bare shoulders, catching on the hooks of her elbows before she allowed it drop to the floor. Jon could not resist the allure of her bare flesh and turned to pepper her shoulders in what seemed like a thousand kisses, tongue and teeth skirring across her skin as though it were a fine Arbor Gold and his was a thirst that might never be sated.

Defrocked of all but her night rail, Sansa could feel every touch he offered. The warmth of Jon's hands over the thin shift left her feeling as though she wore nothing at all and the urge to feel his bare skin against hers grew doubly, nearly threatening to consume her.

The touch of his thumb to the underside of her breast made her stomach jump and as his mouth lowered to join the path left by his fingers Sansa could not help but tremble, keening beneath the exalting kissed he pressed to her breast.

They sank to the floor in a mess of tangled legs and grasping arms, Sansa’s legs bracketing his as she sat upon his lap. She raked a hand through his dark hair, eyes moving excitedly over his features as though reacquainting herself with the face that she had once known best.

Her eyes drifted over his features, languidly following the places her fingers were too preoccupied to reach; roaming the smooth ridges of his jaw, the weary lines chiseled into his face by so long at war, the curve of a nose broken too many times. His skin was warm to the touch as she slid her arms around his neck, bringing his mouth back to hers after their kiss had been broken by the shifting of positions.

As he turned his gaze upon her the grey of his eyes was nearly swallowed by the blue of her own, and had it not been for the urgency consuming them, Sansa would have ripped the armour from his body piece by piece if only just to feel him against her.

They could hear the crack of stone as the trebuchet launched another projectile, this one striking just beyond the window so that for a moment the keep trembled beneath their feet. The siege continued to rage around them, close enough that Jon could still hear a storm of swords.

But Jon found he did not care— not for knights or thrones or castles— for he had a great fire within and he was only too pleased to let himself burn.

He was gentle as he cupped her breast, the feather-light touch of his callused palm leaving her shivering as though she had been suddenly sprinkled with cold water. When his mouth lowered Sansa could not help but tremble in anticipation as he pressed a set of hungry kisses to each breast, hearing her whisper a soft moan as his teeth grazed across each pert nipple.

The laces of her shift had been pulled free and the soft fabric unspooled beneath her hands, Sansa moaning at the sudden rush of cold as she drew her chest flush against his, hissing softly at the touch of steel to her bare chest.

Sansa's shift rucked up around her hips, the shoulders she gripped seeming to be the only thing keeping her tethered to this earth as his kisses threatened to send her reeling. Her legs parted further as Jon adjusted her weight in his arms, until the only thing left standing between them was the roughspun fabric of his breeches. 

Sneaking one last look at him Sansa shifted her hips against his hard length and all at once the chamber came alive.

But instead of the battle cries and the cracking of stone they had all too quickly become accustomed to only whimpers filled the silence, only sibilated moans, only the filthy words that Jon whispered against the valley of her breasts, the basins of her collarbones, the curve of her throat. Sansa might have smiled had she thought of so many years earlier when even the slightest hint of impropriety would have sent her reeling, but now they only made her toes curl, made her rock her hips more firmly against his, until she could feel his cock firm and sure against her centre.

"Gods." Jon sighed. He made quick of unclasping his swordbelt and tossing it aside, lessening the barrier between them by increased measure.

He reached between her parted thighs to ghost his fingers over the part of her that ached so deafeningly for his touch, and though a thrill of pleasure had rushed through her at the contact it was Jon's moan that filled the air.

His breeches had tightened uncomfortably, the discomfort that had built beneath leaving him desperate to sooth the ache. As though she had read his thoughts plain upon his face Sansa turned her attentions toward his laces, the way her fingers brushed against his cock leaving him groaning. The laces of his breeches were pulled free, his soft, frustrated moans only growing louder as Sansa dragged her nails across the ridges of his belly, letting her hand disappear into his trousers as she stroked him languidly.

Jon's arms wound around her, hands sliding down her bare back to palm at her arse as he held her close, never straying far from her lips. His mouth journeyed across each of her slight breasts, her slim shoulders, the path upon her neck that he had come to crave her as one might crave a sweet perfume or the taste of a fine wine.

"Gods." Jon's voice was a ragged whisper as he breathed her name, light and doleful as a sigh, before his lips were back upon hers.

His touch was light as the sweep of cool wind against burnt skin; the lips that ghosted across hers soon joined by his tongue. He savoured the taste of the small moans she made at the back of her throat, finding they were sweeter and more captivating than the taste of honey.

His breeches had come apart beneath her thin fingers and as she stroked him gently with one hand, the other curled into a tight fist within his dark curls. Sansa pulled just hard enough to make him start, the deep, wolflike growl he uttered filling the stifling air around them and making a trill of excitement punch through her belly.

Her maids had not yet attended her hair that morning and Sansa had worn it loose, as though some part of her had somehow sensed that Jon would soon be there to see it— for the loose Northern coiffure had always been his favourite of her many styles. It covered her back like a sheet of auburn fire until he lost himself among the silk-soft strands that slipped through his fingers like water.

Her eyes, shockingly blue and half lidded with the languorous pleasure that flowed through her, seeming to pierce through him as he dropped forward to let his forehead rest against hers, cradling Sansa's face gently between two rough palms.

Moments passed in silence as Jon tried to read her face.

She bobbed her head, as though hoping to convey some meaning that Jon could not understand, and he was grateful when she took pity upon him, offering a light, plaintive whisper of, "Jon."

He understood her meaning at once, feeling suddenly foolish for ever having mistaken it. She draped her arms over his solid shoulders, feeling hammered steel cool against warm skin as he adjusted her weight in his lap and pushed aside his breeches.

Jon pushed into her gently and for a moment their moans intwined to create a long, sibilant cry that seemed to fill the chamber like whispered music.

He nudged himself forward, afraid to hurt her despite the pleasure that thrummed through him at the sensation of her touch. He made to slow, to stop, but Sansa took hold of him, whispering his name as softly and prettily as though she had sang it, and allowed her hips to roll forward to sheathe him to the hilt. 

Her fingers clawed at his back, willing him to move forward. She caught his earlobe between her teeth and pulled as gently as a puppy might pull at the ear of its littermate, but the moan that pulled from her lips was nothing close to innocent.

Jon was overcome with sensation. He could feel her body pulsing around his, feel her satin soft skin as he draped her legs around his hips, feel her fingers pulling through the hair at the back of his neck as she pressed her face against the concave of his shoulder. She smelled so sweet, like a gathering of flowers he could not name but would forever associate with her, and, in that moment, his only complaint was that he was not properly able to taste her.

But, he supposed, there would be time enough for that soon.

She was sweet, her skin flushed and warm, and a hint of pleasure twisted through him at the thought that he had affected her thusly. His tongue slid across each offered collarbones and down to the pale, ivory skin of each of her pert breast. The way his tongue ran over each pert nipple made her gasp, unconsciously thrusting her chest toward his mouth.

The rasp of his beard scraped gently at her naked skin as he kissed her, leaving her flesh tingling as though a thousand dull pins were tapping gently against every inch of her.

Sansa had always been one of the cleverest girls he had known at Winterfell, and beyond. She had learned to read more than a year earlier than her tutors would have begun teaching her, so that she was often looking over his or Robb's shoulders at whatever letters they had drafted and coming away with the contents.

She had always had a particular knack for singing, widely recognised at the court of Winterfell, where she often sang for the other high lords and ladies when they visited. But Jon had always known that Sansa had an equal talent for being able to learn a new song after only hearing it once.

Sansa had always been a keen student, adept at learning new subjects, and this instance was no different. Within minutes she had already become familiar with the gentle pace Jon had set and began to urge him faster, one of her hands stroking lovingly through his dark curls as she sought to encourage him. Jon could feel the heat of her breath as she bedded her head against his shoulder, her mouth on his chin, lips stealing kisses upon any inch of territory they could claim. 

"Gods." he moaned, offering a throaty whisper that could barely be recognised as his own. His voice was older now, defined in a way that it had never been before, and each time he spoke its depth sent shivers down her spine.

Sansa was surprised by Jon's gentility as he held her. His fingers were callused from so many years of Longclaw’s roughened grip but upon her they were only gentle. His hands moved over her as though he were mapping her body. The backs of his fingers brushed affectionately across the slope of her cheek as he kissed her, the rough palm of his free hand bawdily gripping her arse before moving between her legs; touching his fingers to her so gently that her thighs began to tremble.

It had been so many years that Sansa had ached for his touch that it nearly overwhelmed her. To allow herself a moment of reprieve, she leaned forward and buried her face in the hollow between neck and shoulder. She recognised his smell at once, strong and heady and distinctively Jon, and inhaled the scents of oiled leather and dried cedar, nose crinkling at the slight metallic edge that had been brought upon him by the spatter of blood against his shirtfront.

Sinew bunched and ripped beneath his jerkin and undertunic, tempting her tongue to run across each writhing muscle. His skin tasted of salt and earth against her tongue, as though she had just taken a gulp of fresh sea water. 

"Jon." she cried out, voice high and hoarse as the final note of a long song. There was a fist rapping upon the chamber door but Jon pays it no mind, unsure if Sansa could even hear it over the depth of his own moans.

She moaned his name as though it were the only word she knew and Jon offered a feeble groan, glad that he had thought to remove his gloves, for as he reached down to adjust the legs wound around him he was more than glad to feel bare skin upon his. Her flesh was soft as brushed silk, softer than anything, perhaps, that he had felt in a very long while.

Jon had waited so long to be with her again. To feel her arms around him and her lips moving over his, to hear the sweet words that spilled from her lips with whispered urgency. He knew it would not be much longer until he found his release.

He kissed her, letting his eyes drag over her face as though hoping for a way to wordlessly describe all that he felt in that one long moment. There was a fire in her blue Tully eyes and it scorched him, so hot that Jon could feel the molten heat of it upon his bare skin as though a wall of fanned flames had come over him. 

He could taste the moans that formed on her tongue and poured from her lips like sweet honey, and he drank them in, luxuriated in them, savored them as one might savour a glass of fine Dornish wine.

Sansa's fingers had curled into this scalp as she pulled at his dark curls, so tight that it had been almost painful, but as the pain changed and began to bleed into the pleasure it was all he could do not to urge her to pull harder. Her free hand gripped tight to his shoulder for balance, digging her nails into his skin and leaving marks he was sure to see tomorrow.

The scent of perfumed bath water still lingered on her skin, stronger than the smell of rubble or burning ash, more potent still as he pressed his face to the hollow of her breasts and inhaled. She smelled of jasmine and marjoram and something so completely uniquely Sansa that simply smelling it brought memories of lingering touches and midnight rendezvous in the Godswood rushing suddenly back.

Sansa alternated intoxicatingly between low, anfractuous moans and soft, breathy sighs and it sent shockwaves of pleasure rippling through him. He licked her parted lips and pulled her tighter against his mouth, trying to see if her moans tasted as good as they sounded.

Sansa grinned blissfully, nosing at his neck. Her teeth scraped across the ridge of his jaw before her tongue moved to sooth away the pleasant burn she had left behind, and as gooseflesh sprang up where teeth had met flesh, Jon watched genuine delight flood her face and could not help but smile with her.

She moved against him with all the virility of a wild mare. Her chest was pressed to his and even through the layers of mail and boiled leather he could feel her hitched moans reverberating through him as though they had been uttered against the shell of his ear. They had began to lilt higher with every thrust of his hips, until she was nearly shouting from the pleasure of his touch, her body pulsing around his as though at any moment she might suddenly burst.

"Jon." she moaned and her loose hair swept across his face like a sheet of auburn fire. The way she said his name made him choke out a groan, his voice filling the war-torn air with a low, wolf-like growl. It made a thrill run through her.

The skin that touched Jon's was like fire, like flame that had burned its way through her before moving on to him. As she rocked against him, her breath hitching and her moans leading toward crescendo, Jon could see the untamed fire that burnished behind her eyes, and knew then what he had always known— that he wanted nothing more than to burn with her.

Sansa felt as though she were a string pulled too taut, as though at any given moment she would be pulled too tight and snap. To hear her moan his name that way was enough to send him over the edge and with one final, indefatigable thrust Jon was sent over the edge.

It was as though the Gods had crafted his body solely for the purpose of feeling hers against it; to feel her lips on his and hear the sweet moans uttered against the shell of his ear, to feel the weight of her head as she let it fall against his shoulder or the tightness of her belly against his as her orgasm curved languidly through her.

For the first time in years Jon allowed himself to fall against her, to sink completely into her arms and know with complete confidence that Sansa would hold him. Her arms wound around his mailed shoulders, caring little for muck or mud or any of the other horrors the Battle for King’s Landing had ravaged upon his once clean armour.

They remained that way for a long while, wrapped around each other like limbs of some grasping vine, winding around whatever foreign surface could be reached, holding so tightly to each other it was as though they were each afraid of letting the other go, for fear of once more losing them.

Jon let his head fall against her heaving chest as she struggled to catch her breath, hearing her heart hammering madly against the cage of her ribs, as though it might suddenly burst forth. Unable to resist, he pressed his lips to the slope of each bare breast in a tender kiss. But it was not the kiss of one lover to another— but a patient kiss, a reverent kiss. The kiss of a man whohad been separate from his love for far too long.

Despite the callused roughness that marked the flesh of his hands, Jon’s fingers were nothing but gentle as he helped her dress. Though Sansa was clad in naught but a thin linen shift, as she stood before the shattered window and looked out upon the battle-worn city, she stood strong and brave, looking every inch the queen that Cersei Lannister would never be.

Sansa allowed herself a moment to look around the vast, empty chamber where she had spent so many long months locked away, and for the first time in more years than she could count, she found her heart filled with hope.

She laid her cloak about her shoulders and tied it tightly enough to hide her lack of proper dress, accepting the hand that Jon offered and as they crossed through the door and were enveloped within the familiar throng of Northern soldiers, Sansa did not bother to look back, knowing that now she need only move forward. Toward Jon, toward Robb, toward Winterfell.

She let her fingers intwine with Jon’s as he pulled her first through the winding corridors of the Red Keep, before they were enveloped by the bright freshness of sunlight and the propitious howls of a city won, of weapon’s laid down and acknowledged defeat.

It was not long before her eyes met a flash of red and the glint of a wrought iron direwolf. An emblazoned crown, forged to commemorate the man who had grown older and evolved from Prince to King in the North.

And now, as the sound of clashing steel and breaking stone no longer met her ears, Sansa stepped forward to greet her brother, the boy she had left behind at Winterfell become the man who had taken the Seven Kingdoms from the hands of those who had betrayed them.

Jon followed close behind her, his grey eyes bright and glimmering with the inhabitance of unshed tears, and as Sansa Stark reached her brother, he could not help but feel once more at peace, together again, together at last. The wolves of Winterfell had come again.

**Author's Note:**

> ive been wanting to write a rescue fic for a long, long, long time now and, after working on it for months on end, it has taken everything out of me. but in the end, I'm really happy with how it came out, and i hope it was as enjoyable to read as it was to write!
>
>> 


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